From next week, my traveling schedule is exciting but ridiculously hectic. Madrid-Seville-Madrid; then Madrid-Dubai-Muscat-Dubai-Madrid, then Bristol-Darlington-London-Madrid, all within the month of June. I'm short on time at each destination so want to fly where ever I can to save time but don't want to break my bank either.

Madrid is not a very well connected city for cheap flights, the only budget airline here is Vueling, but the places it flies to is limited. Also, trying to go to individual budget-airline websites and booking on multiple sites is just a pain in the neck, so after a few hours of being depressed looking at my possible flight bills, I was thrilled when I found Wegolo.com.

It's awesome because it searches 75 airlines that are ONLY budget airlines, to your destination. It gives you all flight options, you can search dates before and after your selected dates, and it completely omits traditional airlines -- so all the options it shows are the cheapest possible. Because of the number of airlines it searches through, it's easy to book multiple flights from multiple destinations without having to get off the site -- it just makes things so much easier!

All information is updated in real-time, there are no hidden costs, all airlines they search have: e-ticketing facilities, you can buy with Visa, MasterCard and American Express, and booking confirmations in English. I'm quite relieved to find this site! Do check it out.

I generally find Spain very laid back and relatively lagging in the world of technology -- it's what I often enjoy about being here.

It's somehow possible to stay away from the high-tech hysteria everywhere else, be it use of technology in your personal life (I don't know anyone here who cares about the iPhone), or in the professional sector (when I went to pick up my resident card in Madrid, my appointment had been noted on 3 different hand-written(!) lists.

So when I read that a group of tourists who were robbed in Barcelona about a year ago are finally going to get justice by testifying via webcam(!) from their respective country, I almost fell off my chair!

According to the Guardian, 24 British, Belgian, German, Danish, Portuguese, American and Australian alleged victims of a Romanian gang who posed as police to rob tourists in Barcelona last year, will see the culprits punished, assuming the case is revolved. Time differences between the countries are being coordinated, webcam identification of the criminals, and stories of the victims, are being heard. Apparently, all this "tech-justice" process was devised to quicken clearing the backlog of nearly 270,000 such pending cases in the country.

Tourists often get robbed when traveling and can never do much about it because they are leaving the country shortly, this webcam justice initiative by Barcelona has taken things to a new level -- I would never have expected such a thing to come out of Spain. Bravo!

I discovered Ten by Ten about 4 years ago in Benetton's "Colors" magazine and ever since I've logged onto it countless times.

The website gives you an hourly update on what's happening in the world through 100 pictures and 100 words, all scouted by a program that scans through RSS feeds from BBC, Reuters and NY Times.

The pictures you see appear in order of importance (left to right, top to bottom). The word corresponding to the image tells you something about the photo; click on the image and you can see the top headlines this hour alongside the picture.

So in a nutshell: the website automatically captures an hourly updated image of the world. Benetton's Fabrica artist -- Jonathan Harris -- who came up with the idea, calls it Internet Art.

What's also cool is that from November 2004 till date, you can get the "image of the world" for any year, any day, and any hour.

It beats all the "day in photos"/ "best of week photo" sections on any news-site. Simple, creative, brilliant.

I find this map (click to enlarge) interesting in that it not only features a bunch of domain codes I've never heard of, but it also manages to look surprisingly similar to an actual world map-- without a single line being drawn.

Want to display your worldliness and nerdiness all at once by hanging this piece of girl-repellent on your wall? Thirty dollars a piece while supplies last.

[via Chris Blattman]

It has taken Lonely Planet a while to jump on the video band wagon. Finally, they are starting to push video.

LonelyPlanet.tv provides a good opportunity for anyone traveling with a video camera and a good story to tell. According to today's NY Times, LP uses the Web site to promote its own short films and scout for interesting videos sent in by amateurs, paying $500 for videos it would like to showcase as one of its "picks."

If picked, you might also be featured an amateur video on its new YouTube channel: Youtube.com/lonelyplanet. Earlier this month, the channel was started with 20 selected Lonely Planet videos, and new clips are to be added every week. Current videos include "The Top Three Places for Bohemian Rhapsody," "Amsterdam Anime" and "Polar Plunge."

Also: read our coverage on LonelyPlanet.tv from last year here.

A trip to Africa requires some serious preparation. Guidebooks. Vaccinations. Maps. Tourist visas. Mosquito nets. Hiring guides. For many people, the very idea of the African continent conjures images of huge steamer trunks, pith helmets and mountains of travel gear. But for the technology-inclined, the mysterious continent author Paul Theroux once dubbed "the dark star" is becoming just a little bit more accessible, thanks to Tracks4Africa.

Essentially a giant community mapping project, Tracks4Africa is a non-profit organization that maintains user-generated GPS maps of some of the more remote and "eco-sensitive" areas of Africa. Although the project originally started as a way for outdoor enthusiasts to preserve some of Africa's most unique plant and animal life, it has since blossomed into a full blown database of "off the beaten path" sights in Africa. More than 1,400 adventure travelers have contributed data on everything from recent elephant attacks to ghost towns and covered countries ranging from Ethiopia to Mozambique. And because it's entirely user-created, there's a good chance users will also have access to the most current information on the ground. Take this in contrast to an Africa guidebook from Lonely Planet, which might not get updated for several years (if at all).

All you need to get started with Tracks4Africa is a compatible GPS unit and a sense of adventure. Armchair adventurers take heart - the Tracks4Africa database is also viewable through Google Earth. Now get out there and find me a nice date plantation to check out in Namibia.

Traveling isn't always green. As Iva pointed out, it's pretty difficult to feel good about the time we spend in planes. And the UN calculates that in 2007 there were about 900 million international travelers; that means travel is having a bigger and bigger impact on the environment. Beyond giving up travel altogether, what can we really do in order to make our favorite pastime greener?

The ladies over at Go Green Travel attempt to answer just that question today as they kick off their 25 Days to Green Travel series. The series will cover the basics; the who, what, where, when, why and how of green travel. Over the next 25 days they will post about green ways to prepare for a trip, green things to do while traveling, and even what do to on your return trip home.

In honor of Earth Day, the series' first post is entitled 31Reasons to Travel Green: In Pictures. If you have ever had any questions over why to travel green, this gives a pretty poignant visual answer. Do yourself an Earth Day favor and check it out here.

It's just gotten easier and cheaper to phone home from almost anywhere in the world.

Skype, the internet telephone service that allows users to make phone calls over the internet to other Skype users free of charge, has just announced its new service: unlimited international calls to 34 nations for $9.95 per month. That includes calls made from your computer to land lines and mobile phones. And that's really cheap.

So if you're taking a round-the-world trip, say, and your grandmother isn't ready to learn how to use Skype, then you can call her at home from an internet cafe. No more phone cards and learning how to use the various public phone systems that seem to change with each country.

It might not be long before even E.T. can really phone home.

I have to admit, at first I didn't really understand Twitter. Microblogging? Who cares? But then I signed up for an account, connected with a few friends, and -- like most everyone else using the service -- became addicted. It really is a great way to stay up-do-date and connected with friends and family. Heck, Gadling even has a Twitter account, but we're still working the kinks out of it so it's pretty quiet now. If you're still unsure of what Twitter is, watch this.

Anyway.

TwittEarth is a nifty little website I just found that displays recent tweets from around the world on a spinning globe, Google Earth style. It serves no other purpose than giving you a new way to look at the data, but it does a great job at that. So off you go -- sign up for a Twitter account and microblog away, or just stare at the pretty spinning globe.

(Via TechCrunch)

The web has already created all sorts of great ways for travelers to connect and share information. Sites like Dopplr let you share details on where you're going with your friends, while Wikitravel has brought us the next generation of collaboratively-created travel guides.

But these types of interactive travel sites are only the beginning. A new generation of user-driven travel portals promises to combine travel opinions with searchable maps, images, tagging capabilities and intuitive recommendation systems. One of the more interesting of this new crop of sites is TripSay. TripSay, which is still in private beta mode, promises to let users create their own personalized travel profiles, as well as to rank and create recommendations from their travels. As you begin to add friends to your travel network and further define your preferred traveling style, TripSay customizes its content to your interests. Think of it like Trip Advisor on steroids. Recently, Gadling was lucky enough to snag an invite to the private beta testing and take the site for a spin.

On first glance, TripSay offers a relatively easy-to-use interface. When you first sign-up, you're asked to rate some of the places you've visited, assigning them a ranking on a five point scale from "smiley" down to my favorite, "butt." You're also able to further tweak your profile on the basis of travel style, including identifiers like whether you lean towards budget or luxury travel, your language abilities and previous travel experience.

Since I'm headed to Japan in a few weeks, I decided to see what the site had to say about Tokyo. TripSay loaded up a map of the city, already dotted with markers indicating sites of interest. I clicked on the marker for the Tokyo Tower, which brought up an overview of the building, along with a random photo of it pulled from Flickr. Since the site hasn't yet launched, there are only a few markers, but I can see the potential. Any user can add their own tips to the map, categorizing them into such topics as "eat, drink and party," "culture," "nature" and "amusement" among others. As you add more travel friends, the markers that appear on your map are tailored to reflect the suggestions of your friends and your particular preferences.

Any great travel experience is ultimately a product of both spontaneous epiphany and reliable information. That information can come from any number of sources - a guidebook, the web or even word of mouth. TripSay looks to be an interesting hybrid of all three. However, its success will ultimately depend on its community of users, who will provide the site's appeal and content. Want to help them get things started? Leave us a comment below and we'll randomly select five winners early next week to get invites.

[Note: comments have now been turned off. Thanks to everyone for expressing their interest!]